BERNE, INDIANA SWISS GERMAN: LESSONS LEARNED FROM A SMALL-SCALE DOCUMENTATION PROJECT by Gretta Yoder Owen Bachelor of Science, Huntington University, 2003 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of North Dakota in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Grand Forks, North Dakota August 2010 This thesis, submitted by Gretta Yoder Owen in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts from the University of North Dakota, has been read by the Faculty Advisory Committee under whom the work has been done and is hereby approved. ___________________________________ Chair ___________________________________ ___________________________________ This thesis meets the standards for appearance, conforms to the style and format requirements of the Graduate School of the University of North Dakota, and is hereby approved. __________________________________ Dean of the Graduate School __________________________________ Date ii PERMISSION Title Berne, Indiana Swiss German: Lessons Learned from a Small-Scale Documentation Project Department Linguistics Degree Master of Arts In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a graduate degree from the University of North Dakota, I agree that the library of this University shall make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for extensive copying for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor who supervised my thesis work or, in his absence, by the chairperson of the department or the dean of the Graduate School. It is understood that any copying or publication or other use of this thesis or part thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of North Dakota in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis. Signature ______________________________ Date __________________________________ iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES......................................................................................................................vii LIST OF TABLES......................................................................................................................viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..............................................................................................................x ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................................xii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................1 1.1 Purpose of this Project......................................................................................................1 1.2 Historical, Geographical, and Linguistic Background.......................................................4 1.2.1 Origins of Anabaptists in Canton Bern.......................................................................5 1.2.2 Religious Beliefs and Resulting Persecution..............................................................7 1.2.3 Swiss Mennonite Migration to the United States........................................................8 1.3 Past Patterns of Language Use........................................................................................12 1.4 Linguistic Situation Today..............................................................................................18 1.5 Berne Schwyzerdüütsch in the Literature........................................................................19 II. PROJECT GOALS AND DESIGN......................................................................................21 2.1 Goals for Berne Language Documentation Project.........................................................21 2.1.1 What does remain of the language?..........................................................................23 2.1.2 What will be the means of “capturing” the language? ............................................24 2.1.3 How will recorded samples of the language be preserved? ......................................27 2.1.4 In what format(s) should the data be presented to the community?..........................28 iv 2.1.5 What will be done to make the data available to the community for future use?......30 2.1.6 In what format(s) should the data be presented to the academic community? .........30 2.1.7 What steps must take place to make the data accessible in the future?.....................32 2.2 Project Design.................................................................................................................32 2.2.1 Four Research Models for Linguistic Fieldwork......................................................33 2.2.2 Consent.....................................................................................................................36 2.2.3 Contacts....................................................................................................................37 2.2.4 Recording Communicative Events............................................................................38 2.2.5 Preserving and Presenting the Language Data..........................................................39 2.2.6 Summary of Project Design......................................................................................39 III. METHODOLOGY..............................................................................................................41 3.1 Interview Sessions...........................................................................................................41 3.1.1 Wenker Sentences.....................................................................................................46 3.1.2 Pear Story Movie......................................................................................................48 3.2 Data Organization...........................................................................................................49 3.3 Developing an Orthography for Transcriptions...............................................................52 3.3.1 Consonants...............................................................................................................54 3.3.2 Vowels......................................................................................................................57 3.3.3 Other Orthographic Conventions..............................................................................63 3.4 Methodology for Preparing Materials for the Community..............................................64 IV. A COMMUNITY IN THE FINAL STAGES OF LANGUAGE LOSS..............................70 4.1 Language Attitudes.........................................................................................................70 4.1.1 Correctness...............................................................................................................71 4.1.2 Politeness..................................................................................................................72 v 4.2 A Historical and Cultural Portrait...................................................................................74 4.3 Common Themes Throughout Interviews.......................................................................76 4.3.1 Food Production and Preparation..............................................................................76 4.3.2 Faith and Religion....................................................................................................81 V. OVERCOMING OBSTACLES TO DOCUMENTATION.................................................83 5.1 Finding Fluent Speakers of a Dying Language................................................................83 5.1.1 Interviewing Multiple Participants Together............................................................84 5.1.2 Demographic Information Collected from Participants............................................85 5.2 Encouraging Community Involvement............................................................................88 5.3 Focusing on Community Values ....................................................................................89 5.4 Working with an Elderly Population...............................................................................93 5.5 Balancing the Ideal Versus the Possible..........................................................................95 VI. CONCLUSIONS................................................................................................................96 6.1 Summary.........................................................................................................................96 6.2 Community Interest in Documentation............................................................................97 6.3 Areas for Further Research.............................................................................................98 6.4 Value of Language Documentation.................................................................................99 APPENDICES............................................................................................................................101 Appendix A Swiss Language Documentation Questionnaire.................................................102 Appendix B Wenker Sentences – Standard German with English Translations.....................105 Appendix C Overview of Corpus Excerpts Included on CD...................................................109